Wednesday, 1 July 2015

(vol 2) Chapter 25: “CampNaNo 2015 – Day 1”

What do you do when one writing project is complete (see FlashDog
Anthology release)? Get stuck into something else, of course.

If you read last week’s post then you’ll know that I’m
using this July, and more specifically CampNaNoWriMo, to begin work on my
latest project; upgrading ‘Chris and Mike vs’ stories from Flash Fiction to
Novellas.

For the next month, my posts will consist of word count
updates, as well as a little background on each days writing (highs and lows),
and how the overall story is coming along. So, without further ado . . .

Day One – 817 words

It was both a good and a bad start to Camp. Good, because I
managed to get going and bad because, after 45 minutes of ‘going’, my laptop
battery expired. Guess I forgot to check its charge last night (Palm, meet
face. Face, meet palm).

It wasn’t that bad a thing really
though. I lost about a quarter of an hour sure, but the mini intro chapter was done, so I would only have got the next chapter a little underway (although this is normally
nice because you hit the ground running on your next writing session).

Originally I’d considered
starting the story with Mike, to show how mundane his life was. Then, I changed
my mind and thought it would be better to open the story with Chris in a
meeting with a psychologist. Instead (I know, I know) I opened with the
reveal of a shadowy, evil figure, and his wretch of a human minion.

It’s strange, because I’ve had
this story in my head for a while, I have a rough plan laid out, and yet it
wasn’t until I wrote the first couple of lines that I realised I could still
keep the wit of the original Flash Fiction pieces.

How many people
come to a dilapidated church at midnight? It’s not a regular social activity
for most people. Maybe drunk kids. Maybe psychopaths trying to ritually murder
some poor bastard.

And then there’s
your villains.

This villain was a dark as they get.
Literally. This villain was a living shadow, a being of pure blackness. And
totally evil to match.

Hopefully
I can keep this style going throughout.

Something
else that happened, as my fingertips were beavering away, was the instantaneous
creation of a character. He’s not in a single one of the Flash pieces and I hadn’t
planned for him in anyway. I just suddenly thought ‘this evil guy wouldn’t dig
a hole in a graveyard by himself. He’d have a minion do it for him’. A minion called Pesci Cherub.

(And
before you ask, Lizzy, no, not one of those Minions!)

With
what amounts to a prologue now out of the way, tomorrow I start work on the
intro scenes to our two main characters. I’m looking forward to getting into
their heads with more than 100 words to play with.

ROUND UP

And
that’s it. Not much, I know, but that’s what happens when your first NaNo day is
the same day of the week as blog posting (and you run out of that thing called electricity).
Obviously next week will have a lot more going for it.

Before
I go, I’ll just quickly mention that I did indeed manage to write three separate
‘Chris And Mike vs’ stories over the weekend, one for each of the Flash
contests I take part in. Thursday was their normal Micro Bookends adventure with CHRIS AND MIKE vs THE BARBARUS BEAST.
Then, the following day, and Flash!
Friday brought out the sci-fi tinged CHRIS
AND MIKE vs INVADERS FROM MARS!, an ode to the classic serial shows of the
30’s and 40’s. And finally the expansive word count of Angry Hourglass gave us the
Jaws / Tremors homage that was CHRIS AND
MIKE vs THE SECRET BENEATH THE SAND. It was fun writing all three and if
you’d like to enjoy them too then just head over to Wattpad
where (by fan demand) I’ve stuck up each and every ‘Chris And Mike vs’ adventure
written so far.